At first, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to attend the Lynx networking night titled: The Creative Club Party; which was basically a prequel to the main Lynx Awards Ceremony taking place tonight. After enquiring by e-mail if it was possible to attend the networking event only, and not be registered as a delegate or attend the day seminars, I was informed that: “the event is very popular and so is only open to registered delegates.” So, I immediately dismissed the idea of going to the event, until a lady at the Media Mondays’ event commented that it shouldn’t be a problem for you to get in, since the event is held at a hotel venue.
I still wasn’t too keen on getting dressed up and showing up at the door, and risk not being allowed into the event. But then a friend suggested to go and give it a try and then let me know if he faced any problems in getting in. And so he did, and he was allowed in. That’s when I dressed up in a casual business style in a cream tweed-like jacket and a black A-cut shaped skirt that was above the knee. Luckily, my hair was done the previous day for the Media Mondays event, and so after a quick fix and wearing a head band, I was ready to go. (Well, that’s the brief version, of course there was make-up application, ironing my skirt, and wearing jewelry and perfume).
As my friend and I arrived at the funky and graffiti decorated “The Dek on 8” at Media One hotel in the heart of Dubai Media City, we immediately started putting our networking skills into the test. Still acting on the high impulse and drive from the previous night’s Media Mondays event, we went up to random individuals and started to introduce ourselves and have a casual discussion with them. The only problem being that this event wasn’t actually designed for doing that! As we approached people to start a conversation with them, we were confronted by looks of surprise and sometimes arrogance as to what we were exactly doing 🙂 Having interned at a multi-national advertising agency in Dubai over a year ago, I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised of the responses we got.
Yes, I was highly familiar with the ad agency types…I can’t generalize though. I was very delighted to meet some genuine and good friends from my internship days at JWT Dubai. It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up and discuss general topics. I was even impressed that some of them could remember me after such a long time of me leaving the agency. I always thought that people who worked at ad agencies had super powers to be able to work for extra long hours, and still manage to wake up early the next day and be at the office on time! I think I could learn a lot from them on work ethics and loving what you do and having undying passion for it.
To make the picture more clear to you readers, last night when I was approaching random people at “The Dek on 8”, I felt as if I was the star of an episode of the popular MTV British reality TV show: Plain Jane. For any of you who are not familiar with the show, the series basically takes a different plain Jane girl each week and with the help of British fashion expert Louise Roe, transforms her into a more confident and stylish lady before going out on a romantic date with her secret crush. (I know, very teenage thing to watch – I do enjoy it though!). So in the same way as plain Jane would have to overcome her shyness and approach strange guys at the beach or any other public place and start a casual conversation with them, I found myself going up to random people and introducing myself and chatting them up. Except that the show wasn’t directed or produced by a TV network! It was my own life and I was the sole actor, director and producer 🙂
I can proudly say that although the event wasn’t exactly created for exchanging business cards or meeting new people, me and my friend still managed to meet a good number of people throughout the night. We had a good time and laughed our way out of awkward moments. But the most important thing is that we didn’t let anything or anyone discourage us or get in the way of our own networking agenda.
Let’s put it this way: we helped get The Creative Club Party started 😉
